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Episodes 36-39

Episode 36
☥ Kaoru is at the hospital for a check up.
☥ Charts are seen and areas point at her left breast.
☥ She has to take off her shirt and bra to be inspected.
☥ It is summer break and usually expected her to be very active with club activities, but she will not be doing so.
☥ The doctor asks her if she will be able to come once a week in the next months to have complete check ups.
☥ She had only gotten out of the hospital a year ago.
☥ Kaoru asks worried if the operation did not give the hoped results and she will not make it.
☥ The doctor tells her he never said anything like that, but she starts to get desperate and scared.
☥ Kaoru says she wants to know the truth, the doctor says she must trust him.
☥ Kaoru runs away.
☥ Throughout all of that, there were faint visions of fireflies.
☥ When Nanako and Tomoko go to the site where Rei died to place flowers and pray for her, they discover Kaoru is on the overpass.
☥ She looks broken and soon begins to cry desperately.
☥ Nanako found that not only she, but Kaoru could not come to terms with Rei's death.
☥ Later after the sun went down, Kaoru walks about aimlessly and calls out "Rei".
☥ She asks why people are born into the world, something she had asked in episode nine. Then she asks why people even bother to go on living when they are just going to die someday anyway.
☥ The next day, Takehiko and Takashi are talking about Rei's death, and eventually Takashi is in a desperate mood and self-anger.
☥ Takashi turns on Takehiko and tells him not to leave something undone that he will regret later; Takehiko thinks he is talking about someone else (Nanako).
☥ Takashi tells him he is an idiot and that he knows who he is talking about and "if she were to go, too" nothing Takehiko could say would cause him to forgive him.
☥ Takehiko is planning to go studying abroad, and that is what caused Takashi to think he was leaving something undone.
☥ Nanako is called up by the basketball team; they are having a match start at six, Kaoru has not shown up yet and no one at her home knows of her whereabouts either as she had not arrived home yesterday.
☥ Kaoru is back at the train area and walks along the tracks; she is becoming tired.
☥ She is, for once, wearing casual clothes that are not green, yellow or orange. She is wearing blue and beige.
☥ That night, Takashi finds Nanako outside Rei's old apartment because she knew if anyone would know where Kaoru was, she would know and thus she tells him about Kaoru's absence.
☥ He has her get into his car and eventually tells her things he knows when she comes to find Takehiko knew Kaoru.
☥ Takehiko is the one person Kaoru needs more than anyone, he says.
☥ A year or so ago they had been a couple but for certain reasons they broke up.
☥ They still loved each other though, and still do love each other to that point.
☥ It is raining and soon enough Kaoru leaves the train station and goes off elsewhere.
☥ She has a memory again, this time one sees her as well as Takehiko and she is telling him she must forget him because of her love for him.
☥ She comes in front of a telephone booth and starts asking aloud to Rei why she had to die; she thought she would do her best to go one living with what time she had left to live.
☥ She is lonely and fears dying; Rei is no longer there.
☥ Takehiko is told about her missing and he thinks on where she could be; he takes off in Takashi's car to go to her.
☥ He pulls up to stream and far in front of him Kaoru stands.
☥ When she finds it is him she tells him to stay away and then tries to run for it.
☥ He runs after, catches her and turns her around.
☥ For a year, he had been waiting for a time she would need him, but she tells him she will live her life alone.
☥ She tries to run again, he holds her back and asks why she came back there.
☥ The place they are at is where she broke up with him.
☥ She has a memory again, it continues from where it left off last time.
☥ She undoes her kimono and lets him see something about her body to convince him to forget her.
☥ Takehiko looks shocked, and she says that what he has just seen proves she could never make him happy.
☥ Whatever it is, she tells him even if he could love her despite it, his future would suffer because of their love.
☥ He asks her to tell him she needs him now, she turns around, goes up to him and kisses him.
☥ She thanks him for the times they had in the past and then runs off again.
☥ She apparently returned home that night and then left the next day for an early basketball practice at the school.
☥ There was no practice, but Nanako eventually finds her in the clock tower at a place Rei would usually hide out to skip classes.
☥ She is in her usual colors again.
☥ Kaoru knows how to drink and smoke.
☥ She might be a bit tipsy.
☥ Nanako tells her she knows about Kaoru and Takehiko from Takashi.
☥ She tells her when she and Rei first became friends; Takashi brought Takehiko over and introduced them.
☥ She fell in love with Takehiko the moment they met.
☥ It is assumable, she fell in love with him while she was in junior high and he was in college; she was likely somewhere around fifteen and he would have been around twenty.
☥ She recollects going together to various places, but mainly riding a carousel together.
☥ She decides to let Nanako know the reason for the break up.
☥ She unbuttons her shirt and displays her upper body; she had surgery and had her left breast removed; if a relapse occurs within five years she has not any hope.
☥ Takehiko looks through a photo album and there are pictures of Kaoru.

Episode 37
☥ Nanako hugs Kaoru around the upper legs and cries now that she knows the reason Kaoru left Takehiko.
☥ Kaoru does not know whether she has a long life ahead of her or not, but either way she does not want to be a burden to him.
☥ Kaoru felt she could tell Nanako all of that and that it is strange how Takehiko and Nanako are not related by blood but they are very much alike; Nanako, of course, never knew they were related.
☥ Kaoru thought Nanako knew because of the letter writing to her "Dear Brother" and she explains something to Nanako, but it is muted out.
☥ Later on, it is filled in that Takehiko is the son of her father's previous wife.
☥ Now it is known that he is Nanako's brother who was longed after by Fukiko and is the love of Kaoru.
☥ While Takehiko is working later, he receives phone call; no one responds but he knows it is Kaoru.
☥ She briefly tells him she was sorry that she mistakenly told Nanako about their being related and hangs up before he can get a word in.
☥ She was sitting on the floor. A yellow pillow was to her left, her cordless phone is to her right, the abstract painting at her right shoulder, a lamp under it, beside them to the right is a reddish couch and across the room from it is a bed with green covers.
☥ She is wearing colors she usually is not seen in - a white button up shirt with a blue shirt underneath and khakis.
☥ She says aloud that she wants to see Takehiko and soon starts calling to Rei as well.
☥ Both Takehiko and Kaoru recollect the time they were at an amusement park together where the carousel was; Kaoru is in her room on her bed and Takehiko is in front of his computer.
☥ Back then Kaoru told him she saw her future using the carousel as a sort of metaphor telling him at each turn (day) she will love him more than the day before.
☥ In her room, Kaoru speaks to Rei that no matter how many times the carousel turns she sees nothing on the other side.
☥ Takehiko intends to study at the University of Schellenberg in Germany.
☥ Takehiko is 185 cm tall; Kaoru's height seems to reach up to where his eyebrows are.

Episode 38
☥ Takehiko calls up Kaoru while he is at the station and asks her to meet him there in the coffee shop; she refuses.
☥ As he waits, he remembers the past at the amusement park.
☥ They spoke about his dream to go to Germany one day to follow in his father's footsteps.
☥ He asks her what her dream is, but she does not know, though she speaks of her interest in basketball; despite that, she thinks a dream should be more worthwhile and says perhaps she will go to Germany with him.
☥ They get up and decide to ride the carousel again, but on the way, Kaoru's left breast undergoes a sharp pain; she ignores it, but Takehiko is concerned.
☥ When Kaoru gets on one of the carousel horses she soon collapses and lands hard on the floor, a scream-like gasps escapes.
☥ The memory turns to a doctor's office where Takehiko and the doctor talk about her.
☥ The case is unusually bad considering how young she is and it is known tumors spread more quickly when one is so young.
☥ Takehiko asked how many years she would have, and the doctor responds that the surgery she underwent would be sufficient for the time being but there is always the possibility of metastasis.
☥ If the tumor does not come back in five years, she should likely be fine.
☥ Kaoru overhears all of this, drops two glass bottles she is holding and collapses to the floor scared.
☥ This is the second time one sees her in a (different) kimono.
☥ At the news, Kaoru starts telling Takehiko she is sorry and that she might not be able to go to Germany with him as tears stream down her cheeks.
☥ The sun is going down when Kaoru arrives, she is wearing what she was last seen wearing in the previous episode.
☥ She came because she knew he would likely wait there forever until she came.
☥ He tells her he is going to Germany and asks her to go with him.
☥ She says his dream is coming true, congratulates him, tells him to live his dream and forget all about her.
☥ He protests gently that his dream is to go there with her; she responds her dream is for him to find someone else to live his dream with him, but he says only she can be that person.
☥ She runs off again while he is calling her.
☥ Late Takehiko calls Takashi from a bar, when Takashi finally answers the phone and finds he is drunk.
☥ He knows it is because of Kaoru and he tells Takehiko to keep trying and take Kaoru with him to Germany; Fukiko overhears all of this.
☥ Takehiko hangs up the phone eventually, and Fukiko asks about Takehiko going to Germany and if Kaoru is going with him; Takashi does not know.
☥ Takashi got Takehiko home; Nanako comes by with the references her father wrote for Takehiko, but Takehiko is drunk and says he will go to Germany alone; Takashi of course calls him a fool.
☥ The next day Kaoru is shooting hoops when Nanako pulls her aside to the track and field stadium where she and Takashi confront her.
☥ They try to convince her to spend more time with Takehiko and talk with him, but she says she has done enough; they argue she should consider him more but she argues she has and she was doing all that she was doing for him.
☥ Nanako argues that she loves Takehiko and needs him; Kaoru ends up slapping her, not meaning to, but soon apologizes.
☥ Nanako tries again and so Kaoru runs off, her determination to keep away from him grows stronger it seems.
☥ That night Nanako talks to her parents about Kaoru and Takehiko, careful not to say their names; there are brief scenes of Kaoru's flashbacks.
☥ When her father realizes who she is talking about, he comments that Takehiko's love for Kaoru is genuine.
☥ It is raining again and Kaoru has gone to the site where Rei died with some flowers to replace the dying ones.
☥ Fukiko was waiting for her there, expecting Kaoru to be the one changing the flowers; Kaoru comments many others leave thing to honor Rei's memory.
☥ Fukiko tells her she was there to talk to her and they leave to talk under shelter; there, Fukiko sakes if it is true that Kaoru will not be going to Germany.
☥ Kaoru answers true and when asked why she says it is due to personal matters that Fukiko has no business in.
☥ Eventually, Kaoru tells her that she has no time left, only four years at most; Fukiko protests passionately that four years is plenty of time, compared to Rei's last seconds it is an eternity.
☥ Fukiko wants Kaoru to live her life to the fullest and comments that it is not like her to give up; that triggers a memory or thought of Rei saying such words as Kaoru watches Fukiko walk away.
☥ Meanwhile Takehiko is at the bar again and now Nanako confronts Takehiko telling him not to give up nor to go to Germany alone.
☥ Takehiko reassures her he has momentary times of feeling defeated, but his will is strong again and he understands how hard love can be as well as how wonderful.
☥ He returns home and when he looks at his computer words are across the screen; "YES... YES, YES, YES, YES, YES... K.A.O.R.U."
☥ Kaoru is hiding in the dark, by the wall on the floor and begins talking about what will likely happen in the future; she asks him if he will be there with her to hold her hand, and he replies he will be there to hold it if she finds it is good enough.
☥ She replies the affirmative, stands up and falls into his arms crying hard.

Episode 39
☥ At a traditional celebration, Nanako and her parents run into Takehiko and Kaoru; this is the third kimono one sees her in.
☥ Takehiko introduces Kaoru to them saying he and she will marry soon and go to Germany together.
☥ It is August eighth again.
☥ Some point later, Takashi is talking to Takehiko on the phone; Takashi plans to have everything ready for the wedding.
☥ He tells Takehiko to focus on his studies and then questions if he arranged for Kaoru concerning doctors and schooling, which is affirmative.
☥ The school starts up again for a new term and soon enough the final match of the area league championships occurs and it is Kaoru's final game; one can assume they won.
☥ Finally, on a rainy day Takehiko and Kaoru have their wedding.
☥ When she says the "I do", she adds on that she will do so for as long as she lives.
☥ They clasp hands and Takehiko kisses her right temple.
☥ With her left hand, she threw her bouquet high into the air.
☥ The next scene is at the airport where Takashi, Mariko, Tomoko and the Misonoo family see Takehiko and Kaoru off.
☥ No kimono, no wedding dress, no pants... Kaoru's casual attire involves a skirt and she is wearing high heels!
☥ Mariko acts excited for Kaoru, and perhaps she really is, but she breaks down crying into the woman's chest in the end and wishes her much happiness.
☥ Two years later, Kaoru is twenty and Takehiko is somewhere around twenty-five.
☥ A letter is sent to Nanako and inside is a picture of Takehiko and Kaoru with their baby; Kaoru is feeding the child with a bottle.

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